Squidfire Holiday Mart

Crossing things off the list but still a full one. Sorry for the long dramatic pauses between posts this month. Don't hold your breath, they're not building up to anything particularly spectacular, just showing that my time is being taken over by schoolwork, workwork, beltwork, and play.

I'm bursting at the seams to talk about one fun distraction last weekend: the Squidfire Holiday Mart in Baltimore. In the early hours of Saturday morning, Nikki and I loaded up the station wagon at the Wye residence with an assortment of tshirts and belts (so we thought) and headed north. Luckily Nikki volunteered to drive the wagon, but even she was a little nervous to captain such a boat.

Despite a number of woopses along the way, we were pulling into Baltimore when we started getting frantic phone calls from Jon.

H: " Hi Jon, what's up?"
J: "Heidi. You forgot the belts."

Son of a - ugh. We decided to trudge on and figure it out once we met up with Brian and Erica (the punctual ones who were already at the Mart). They saved the day and drove to meet the belts partway up 295 as we set up.

All in all it was a pretty fantastic market. We had a limited stash as we were splitting inventory with Jon who was at the DC Holiday Market, but got a lot of interest and a lot of sales. The interest we got was even more impressive because of the tiny space we had and the lack of the "real" displays and signage that was all with Jon.

More importantly, we gifted a shitload of stickers to the Mart-goers. Mostly Erica, though. She might actually be a drug dealer in a secret life, because she can push product like nobody else.

Brian and Erica also saved the day by bringing us lots of treats throughout the day, including some amazing soup!

All of my favorite people in Baltimore came to visit, so that was a nice little treat as well.

It was a pleasant day to pop my craft fair cherry, so good that I'm going on to my second show this weekend - out in Georgetown. So if you're in the area, I'll be working the front window of Design Within Reach for the Craft Mutiny show. Flying solo this time :( so come visit!

Greetings from Bangladesh.
Much to his dismay, no doubt, I'm going to share some more fun little pictures. "Bangladesh" as most of you know him (otherwise known as Keith) figured out the video function of skype. It was already a surreal experience to chat on the cell phone and hear the noises of a rickshaw ride through the streets of Dhaka in the background, but now I can actually see the VSO office as we're talking. Weird!

I think I made him laugh.

Then said something embarrassing to one of us.

But I post these to do more than just embarrass. Keith is doing some really great work in Bangaldeh - exploring and advocating for some issues that don't get the attention they need. I encourage you to check out his blog to learn more about what he's doing over there as he saves the world (one water-logged country at a time). He has also recently added some pictures of the Eid festivities that were going on earlier this week. Sacrifice is a large part of hte celebration, so...be prepared (don't say I didn't warn you).



Happy Birthday, Mom!
Happy Belated Birthday, A-Davis!

and happy finals to anyone else lucky enough to be in school right now.